1. Start your essay with a short introductory paragraph that outlines your intention for this essay. So think – what is it you want to argue / discuss / present in this essay?– In this essay I would like to argue that
2. Show knowledge of the film industry, specifically the key stages of: production, distribution, consumption– Production, distribution, and consumption are related to how goods and services are created and made available to the public as people buy, sell, and make goods, they become interdependent upon one another to supply what they need or to purchase what they sell.
3. position contemporary film production within a couple of key theoretical positions for example:
   1. Hesmondhalgh’s ideas that mitigate the ‘risky business’ of cultural production– This film can be considered as ‘risky business’ because Joe Stevenson borrowed 110,000 in order to create the film in hopes that he’d eventually gain the money back from profits of the film. However, that isn’t always the case, as Hesmondhalgh said it is mere impossible to predict the audiences taste in films like ‘Chicken’. He also says that coupled with the high costs of production it means that
   2. Curran and Seaton’s arguments for a more diverse media landscape.
   3. Livingstone and Lunt’s suggestion that cultural production exists in a loosely regulated framework, biased towards a consumers rather than citizen model.
   4. The impact of new media technologies for cultural production.
4. Present details of the CSP (Chicken) but make sure you focus on production, distribution and consumption and NOT on a textual analysis of the film – remember the examiner / assessor is assuming that you may not have seen the film.
5. Feel free to add in some audience theory.
6. Conclude your essay with a summative paragraph.

Chicken is an example of micro budget film making and raises issues around the role and future of national cinema as well as the viability of media products produced outside of the
mainstream for niche audiences.

Key Questions and Issues
• Identification of how Chicken is characteristic of an independent film release, with consideration of budget, distribution, circulation. An independent film, is a feature film or short film that is produced outside the major film studio system, in addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies (B Good Pictures).
• Micro budget rather than low budget film (approximately £110,000) – entirely independent financing. A low-budget film is a motion picture shot with little to no funding from a major film studio or private investor. Many independent films are made on low budgets, but films made on the mainstream circuit with inexperienced or unknown filmmakers can also have low budgets
• Distribution techniques – reliance on new technology; VOD, streaming, audience ‘programming’ (open screen etc.)
• Continued use of traditional marketing and distribution; trailers, posters, film festivals etc. Chicken used a traditional method of marketing their product by making a trailer and also used posters to advertise.
• The concept of “risk-taking” in terms of narrative choice available to independent studios
• Regulation of the industry through BBFC (British Board of Film Classification).
• Regulation including Livingstone and Lunt

Link your knowledge of audience to your chosen pair of TV programmes Look at the advertising campaigns (trailers, websites at home and abroad) for your chosen CSP TV series and think about how media producers target, attract and potentially construct audiences across local, national and global scales.

• In order to attract audiences for the killing , producers create adverts that are dramatic. Using dark scenes makes it clear that the program is not meant to be comedic and sets a scene of mystery. The Killing can relate to Katz, Gurevitch and Haas’ Uses and Gratification theory as the programme aims to fulfil personal needs. People may watch these programmes to escape their own lives and become interested and involved in something fictional.
• To attract audiences for No Offence, producers create adverts similar to those of other murder investigation programs, as they know this will be effective because of the success of other murder investigations.

These television programs are aimed at viewers that have an interest in crime drama. By tailoring to these specific interests, the production companies can be sure they will secure viewers by doing this.

By following a specific predictable format it can provide security for the production companies, as they know that following the predictable story line of a main detective following the case of a murder will do well because of how popular they are in the modern day.

1. Show knowledge of the changing media regulatory landscape and the shift towards globalisation– Firstly, the media provide an extensive transnational transmission of cultural products and, secondly, they contribute to the formation of communicative networks and social structures.
2. How do industries target audiences? –  Members of a target market exhibit certain similar characteristics, such as age, gender, geographic location or buying habits that make them more likely to buy a company’s products or services. Industries target these people because they are the most likely people to purchase or watch their product therefore different industries target them by using certain types of language and stories.
3. Present your own CSP case studies (with institutional details) as illustrations and explorations of this issue – No offence is in English and is advertised on channel 4 targeting audiences who watch this channel who are from the UK. However, The Killing is in Danish but has English subtitles. By doing this, the industry is targeting multinational audiences making their product appeal to people viewing in different countries.
4. Highlight Hesmondhalgh’s propositions for the way in which the media industry mitigate this ‘risky business’. – Hesmondhalgh believes that the media industry is a high risk business but he says cultural industries constitute a particularly risky business. The impossibility of predicting audience tastes coupled with the high costs of production and the affects of mass competition mean that the business of making commercially successful media is very difficult. (Media industry is a high risk business, impossible to predict audiences tastes and has high costs of production, hard to compete. Tastes change all the time, cannot guarantee success.)
5. Touch upon Curran and Seaton’s arguments for a more diverse media landscape – Curran and Seaton
6. Present your CSP case studies (with specific textual reference) as examples that either support or refute Curran and Seaton’s ideas.
7. Coupled with some reference to audience theory– Stuart Hall explored how people make sense of media texts and claimed audiences were active not passive. An active audience engages, interprets and responds to a media text in different ways and is capable of challenging the ideas encoded in it.

• An active audience engages, interprets and responds to a media text in different ways and is capable of challenging the ideas encoded in it. 
• A passive audience is more likely to accept the messages encoded in a media text without challenge and are therefore more likely to be directly affected by the messages.

Preferred reading

When the audience responds to the ideas in the way the media producer wants them to. For a programme like The Voice UK or The X Factor this could be large scale audience voting and the purchase of the winning singer’s single.

1. Conclude your essay with a summative paragraph.

The Killing: Produced by Nicole Yorkin. Targets audiences globally, Swedish, Danish, America, British. (Netflix).

First episode aired: April 3, 2011

No Offense: Produced by Paul Abbott. National audiences in Britain.

First episode aired: May 5, 2015

Curran and Seaton are able to argue that the UK governement is partly responsible for the widespread domination of the media landscape by huge congomerates.

George Gerber’s Cultivation theory– the idea that long-term exposure of violent media will lead to a distorted view that the world seems more violent than it actually is. (audience theory.)

The Uses and Gratifications Theory– suggests there are certain reasons why an audience responds to different media texts:

Reason	Description
Entertainment and diversion	Audiences consume media texts to escape from their everyday lives. They choose entertaining texts that allow them to divert their attention from the real world, perhaps by watching a fantasy film like Harry Potter or reading a fashion magazine like Vogue.
Information and education	Some media texts are consumed by audiences when they want to be informed and educated. Newspapers, news programmes and current affairs documentaries educate and inform. They help the audience to find out what is happening in the world.
Social interaction	Some media texts like The X Factor or I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here provoke interaction with the audience. Social media can now spark an immediate reaction and get people talking while the action is still happening.
Personal identity	Some audiences like to watch or read media texts because they can compare their life experiences with those represented in it. Audience pleasure comes from empathising and identifying with characters or content represented in them. Soap operas or lifestyle magazines can offer audiences this kind of enjoyment.

CATEGORY	FAMILIARITIES: from your chosen CSP’s	DIFFERENCES: from your chosen CSP’s	THEORY
CHARACTERS	In ‘The Killing’ and ‘No Offence’ the characters are similar because they are centered around police characters.	In ‘The Killing’ the characters are danish and in ‘No Offence’ they’re English	PROPP, presents the idea of STOCK CHARACTERS, inc ‘hero’, ‘false hero’, ‘princess’ (Killing), ‘father figure’, ‘despatcher’ (No Offence)
NARRATIVE			CHATMAN / FREYTAG /TODOROV
THEMES			LEVI-STRAUSS the use of key themes to structure stories and characters around familiar themes: family, community, law and order, justice. Often set up as binary oppostions: right/wrong urban/rural, young/old, good/bad
REPRESENTATION			PIERCE / BARTHES / SAUSSURE: SEMIOTICS radical and reactionary representations of police, family, law and order, through a range of signs (visual, graphic, audio, narrative, thematic etc)
TECHNICAL CODES / LANGUAGE OF MOVING IMAGE (music, setting, props, lighting, use of camera, editing etc)

What is the difference between a consumer based media regulation system and a citizen based regulation system?

Consumer based- People have wants and needs, should we have a system which give people what people want in terms of their needs.

Citizen- People have their social needs instead of personal needs.

What impact did the 2003 communications act have on media regulation?

• Created Ofcom- As a result independent television production companies were freed up to produce content that was more commercially viable.
• It was made a criminal offence if someone made something offensive.

What is the drawback of a self related system?

• Because most media organisations self regulate themselves and do it all themselves.

How do you regulate media content and organisations on a global scale?

Hesmondhalgh	Case Studies
Changing audience Consumption Patterns	This links to both the killing and no offence because they both have the same genre and it would be hard for producers to know what the audience is going to want next.
Multi-Sector Integration

I have chosen: No Offence and The Killing

‘No Offence’ is an extraordinary police procedural series, where A team of cops, based in a criminal-ridden part of town, work together to keep the streets safe. In the UK, the first episode of No Offence launched with 2.5 million viewers, Channel 4‘s biggest midweek drama launch for more than three years. Although subsequent episodes lost overnight viewers, dropping as low as 1.2 million, the weekly consolidated series average remained at 2.5 million and finished 47% up on Channel 4‘s slot average.^[5] In France, the first episode of No Offence aired on 29 February 2016 on France 2 and was watched by 5.46 million viewers, 20.4% of the TV audience. The next three episodes were shown back-to-back that evening and together achieved an average 4.6 million viewers, 19.3% of the TV audience.^[6]

‘The Killing’ is A crime series that follows the police investigation of the murder of a young girl. It interlocks three different stories.

No Offence:

Commercial Media-

Public Service Broadcaster- Channel 4

The Killing:

Commercial Media- Channel 4

Public Service Broadcaster- DR- Danish Broadcasting

• Curran and Seaton argue that the UK government is partially responsible for the widespread domination of the media landscape by some large conglomerates. – This links to No Offence because Channel 4 ed the show therefore the UK can be responsible for the widespread of the domination of media.
• Money wins, while audience size and audience can share determine content. – Money is the primary reason these shows are made (to make profits)
• Successful media formats are often replicated to deliver to mass audiences. 
• Commercial broadcasting is based on the sale of audiences to advertisers. 
• The success of horizontal and vertical integration means that most commercial print, film television based media in America and the UK is now controlled only by 6 global players
• Horizontal integration of large conglomerates can make profits larger whilst reducing production costs.

In my NEA set brief 4, I am aiming to use Lasswell’s theory of the hypodermic model to ensure that the intended message is directly received and accepted by the receiver. I am going to create a music video to promote an artist. I will also use the uses and gratifications theory which will help me to understand why and how people are actively seeking out specific media to satisfy others specific needs. This will be helpful because the theory outlines major areas to focus on when creating a product that you want to appeal to your target audience. My target audience for this set brief is younger men and women interested in hip-hop and pop music, as this type of music might only really appeal to a younger audience of men and women. The language style used in this set brief for the interview and the advert will be a mix of formal and informal which would appeal and be easy to read for all ages. I aim to represent a music video and magazine not only for a younger audience but, also for people of all ages who are interested in smooth hip-hop and pop music. I intend to get non-copyrighted rap music which I would get from either YouTube or SoundCloud.

For the music video, I will repeat ideologies seen in pop and hip-hop music which consist of going out, having fun with friends. I will start off my music video by showing the empty streets and a quiet town , with one person walking the streets by themselves giving the idea of being isolated. They would put some headphones on and then there will be flashbacks to when that person was having fun with friends and going out when the streets were more crowded. This would then represent the idea of isolation. I will change up the angles within the video making sure there are different camera shots. I will also include long and close shots of places and characters. I will look at how other music videos use props such as cars and buildings to see how I can involve them into my these of isolation. I will be sure to use camera techniques such as depth or field to ensure I create a pleasing video for my target audience.

For my magazine, I will aim for it to be a source of escapism for the reader so that they feel that they can have some time to themselves, reading about music they enjoy. My magazine will also be cheap so anyone of any social class can afford to read it. Before planning my front cover, I created multiple magazine covers of different styles, to see which style of magazine would be the most effective in persuading the target consumer to buy it. I aim for my magazine to be engaging and to be radical, in order to encourage anyone of any age, gender or ethnicity to enjoy the music being promoted. Within the magazine I will be promoting an artist in their upcoming tour. I will do this by creating an advert which will advertise the places where the artist will be playing. I will also be creating a double page spread where I will interview the artist about their upcoming tour.

I intend to create a 4 page music magazine of the artist where it will focus on how the artist rose to fame and their lifestyle. For my front cover magazine, I plan to imply a similar style to Billboard magazines. I will have one large image of the artist covering the whole page, with the title at the top and minimal writing around the photograph. I will be using the theory of preferred reading. I will make a media product where I put ideas in the texts which I will expect my audience to understand. This is called the theory of preferred reading, by Stuart Hall. This is what the producers of the text wanted them to understand. However, each audience is different, so they might understand the text differently to what was initially intended.